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Oak Grove Market: It's Not Just About the Food
By Joan Kaplan
Like any good neighborhood restaurant, I am greeted by name when I enter, I find delicious, fresh food and I rely on it as a haven from the pressures of the daily grind. Little did I know that my favorite dining establishment would have such a profound impact on my life – and not just my waistline.
While eating there almost every day, I am drawn not only to the Market’s fantastic meat selection (I can pick up meat to grill at home or buy cooked roasts, ribs, hamburger, etc.) and their baked cookies and cakes rank up there with the city’s best bakeries, but what compels me most is the experiences and insights I gain while there.
Whether it was divine intervention or just plain serendipity I’ll never know, but I do know that what happened five years ago, while eating lunch with my 5-year-old daughter so greatly impacted my family, I am forever grateful.
During an especially packed lunch time where all the tables were full and we were seated at a table for four when a woman and an elderly man asked to sit with us. (This had never happened before or since then).
Once seated, we learned rather than being the father-daughter team I had expected, it was rather a caregiver with her 90-year-old client. Upon chatting with them, I mentioned that just the night before, my mother finally agreed to allow a caregiver come to her home to help with my ailing father who was suffering from late stage Parkinson’s disease.
She mentioned sadly her father had passed away from the same disease and that she was very familiar with the struggles faced by her own mother. †Ironically, she had openings in her schedule so we exchanged phone numbers and ultimately helped my father until his passing a couple of months ago and still helps my mother when needed.
When my father passed, Mark Maughan, the one of the owners generously sent home with me cooked-to-perfection prime rib (my dad’s favorite) for a Shiva meal (during time of mourning Jewish families gather and dine together to help ease the sadness of the deceased’s relatives.) This type of outpouring and love is so common as The Meat Market constantly contributes to individuals, schools, civic and religious organizations. And they accommodate a wide range of requests from cooking dozens of turkeys at Thanksgiving to providing whole lamb at Easter for the members of the nearby Greek Church.
Non-food related experiences and advice are readily available at the Market as well. Recently when talking to Maughan about my woes of trying to find an economical way of funding the construction of a new home I am building, he provided the name and cell phone number of his banker (Greg Autry at Decatur First Bank) who offered fees considerably less than any others I had found on my own. One of the cashiers offers advice from his first-hand home-building experience about the importance of window selection and the other knowledgeable cashier offers insight about selection of flooring and cabinetry since redoing her entire place after a fire gutted her home last year.
And these type of experiences are not limited to just me. Throughout the day, starting with breakfast at 7:30 a.m., groups of friends and neighbors descend on the market, most claiming it to be an extension of their own home.
Early morning attracts what I call the ‘four-door sedan’ crowd consisting of retirees who meet for coffee and biscuits. †Then, the lunch crowd enters ranging from utility workers to men-in-suits (especially on Thursday lunch steak day!). Later in the afternoon, the Market serves as a Woodward Academy school bus stop so there is a steady trail of kids and parent’s snacking and picking up. Then, the stay-at-home moms arrive during the bewitching hour which begins at 4 p.m. By 5 p.m. the dinner rush begins with all sorts ranging from the elderly using walkers and canes to working moms and dads who flood the market before the 6 pm closing time.
We all get something different from the market and most leave with a package, a smile and at times life-changing experiences or advice.
Oak Grove Market
2757 Lavista Road
Decatur, GA 30033
(404) 315-9831
www.oakgrovemarket.com
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